


Nowhere In The World I Would Rather Be

by QueenElizabeth



Category: British Actor RPF, Doctor Who RPF, Peter Capaldi - Fandom, Scottish Actor RPF, The Thick of It (TV) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Comfort, Comfort Reading, Depression, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Reading Aloud, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 09:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4661247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenElizabeth/pseuds/QueenElizabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU RPF comfort and cuddles for a fan who loves Peter cuddles. </p><p>Established relationship AU: depressed reader has a rough day, and is comforted by her devoted boyfriend</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nowhere In The World I Would Rather Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MalcolmTuckersTangerine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalcolmTuckersTangerine/gifts).



 “I’m not going to go,” he said, as he fumbled in his pocket to retrieve his phone.

“No, no… that’s not what I meant. They can’t shoot without you. I’ll be fine,” you insisted.

“I’m going to stay with you tonight. I can head out tomorrow evening. This is no different than when I had the flu. You stayed with me,” he explained.

“I don’t have the flu, Peter. It’s just a mood. You know how I get…” you trailed off.

“I’ll sit with you, darling,” he said, “It’s not a mood. You can’t skip the med and expect not to notice. If you’re ill, you’re ill. I don’t care if it’s your brain or your sinuses.”

“I don’t want to have to take something to just feel normal,” you whined. “It makes me feel like a loser. Why am I so defective?” you pleaded.

“You’re not defective…” he said softly, pulling you tighter into his arms, “everyone needs a little bit of help every now and then. We’re just big bags of chemicals anyway. You have to add in extra of that one, and then you’re all set. Would you beat yourself up if you had to take some insulin?”

You sighed and closed your eyes, nuzzling into his chest.

“No. No you wouldn’t. You’d just take the bloody insulin and go on about your day. Now I’m going to stay an extra night. You know you’re going to feel better even tomorrow,” he said.

You nodded.

This shit didn’t used to happen to you. You weren’t like this. You were tough. You were confident. Ballsy. But the last year had cut you at your knees.

At first you thought it was the lifestyle: working as much as you ever had, while your boyfriend left for weeks at a time to film. He would steal away to London as often as he could, and sometimes you would move your commitments around to allow you to leave the office early enough to head to Cardiff and surprise him.  But more often than not, you’d settle for 11:00 p.m. FaceTime and random sweet emails from between scenes. You reckoned the change in the relationship, and the distance, was the reason why you’d gotten lost.

It was actually he who had helped keep you sane all these months. It was he who brought it up to you, ever so gently, that you didn’t seem like yourself. It was he who encouraged you to call your doctor, to take a week off. It was he who handed you your very first dose of the mildest anti-depressant on the market, and a glass of water. Within a week or two, things changed. Your doctor told you it was physical, and not uncommon. She told you it would pass, so you assumed it had. Peter went back to work, and you did too. When you ran out of pills, you didn’t refill them, because you were cured. It was he who sat you down and reminded you that it wasn’t how it worked.

“Yes, just the one day….. I am sorry for the inconvenience,” he spoke into his phone. “Family emergency,” he said, and he looked at you with light in his eyes.

You made your way to the kitchen to clear away the last pots and pans on the stovetop – artifacts of a heartfelt Sunday dinner. He finished his call and joined you in standing next to the sink.

“So then what do you want to do tonight?” he inquired.

You smiled halfheartedly and shrugged. “That’s kind of the problem… I don’t really _want_ to do anything,” you said.

“I want to go get in the bed,” he said.

“I mean… I don’t really,” you stumbled over your words.

“No… that’s not what I meant,” he said, and reached out his hand to you. He guided you to the doorway of your bedroom, and threw open the heavy window shades, filling the space with the ambient light of the earliest stages of sunset. He stripped down to a thin t-shirt and boxers, tossing layers and a belt to the floor, and crawled into bed.

“Come on, love,” he said, gently, patting the space next to him.

“This is what I’m not supposed to do though, isn’t it? Like… I’m supposed to get up and get out into the world, and try to maintain my interest in the things that… interest me,” you wondered aloud.

“Firstly, the world is overrated. Everything I love is right here in this room. Secondly, I am interested in spending a night with you right here in our bed with no distractions, finally. And lastly, if you feel sick, you go to bed. That’s science,” he said with a mischievous smirk.

“Is it?” you asked, a faint smile gracing your lips.

“Trust me,” he said, “I’m a Doctor.”

You smiled broadly and genuinely, in a way that felt reminiscent. Nearly nostalgic. Feelings. You were feeling one.

You joined him in bed and he propped his head up on his arm, lying on his side facing you, mirroring you.

“This _is_ pretty nice,” you admitted.

“I’ll say so,” he replied. “The view is amazing.”

You craned your neck to peer out the windows behind you, seeing sunlight bounce off the roofs of the other homes down your street. Iron fenceposts. Birds huddled together. A charming still life of London on a summer’s evening.

“Yeah,” you said, face still away from Peter’s.

“That’s just a bunch of birds. And that’s David and Kate’s house. I don’t even like them,” he said.

You laughed lightly and returned your gaze to him.

He leaned in and kissed you sweetly.

“ _This_ view….” he whispered.

You smiled and inhaled deeply, returning your breath to the air with a soft sigh, slowing your heartbeat just so. Time slowed a hair.

“I could look at it forever,” he said.

You looked up into his blue-green eyes, the color of deep water, and equally as endless. You studied his long dark eyelashes and the way they moved when he blinked. You traced the tiny lines that adorned the corners of his face, the badges of a lifetime of earnest laughter.

“I know what you mean,” you replied.

You remained this way for some time, just lying together in stillness and in comfort. You were so deeply grateful to have him home.

You pressed a kiss to his lips. He closed his eyes and wrote it onto his heart.

“Can I read to you?” he asked.

“We haven’t done that in _ages_ ,” you said, audibly touched.

“What do we have? You choose,” he insisted, and shuffled his body upward and into a nest of pillows.

“What’s in your drawer over there? I have… let me see. This is a magazine…” you narrated your rifling through your nightstand.

“I have a comic book and a chocolate wrapper,” he resigned, putting on his spectacles.

You shook your head with a smile and said, “of course you do.”

“Awwwwwww, I have Pride and Prejudice,” you announced sentimentally. You had forgotten you’d tucked that away in the drawer. So many of your books were digital now. You never bought a new one in paper, and this copy was a well-worn favorite from your late teen years.  

“That’s more suitable than the Menace of the Molags. Hand it over,” he said.

You pulled your hair back into a loose ponytail and took your spot by his side. He motioned for you to get closer, and wrapped his left arm around you. You rested your head on his shoulder, hugging your own arm up and under him, nearly touching the back of his neck with your right hand. Your left arm was free to move up and down his body. Over his stomach, across his chest. Tucked inside his t-shirt against his warm skin.

He kissed your forehead. Kissed the top of your head. Adjusted his specs and opened the book in front of him, steadying it with his long lean arms.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,” he began. His voice resonated through the air, clear and strong.

“However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters,” he read. His accent rendered everything he read aloud to you somehow infinitely more charming.

“’My dear Mr. Bennet,’ said his lady to him one day, ‘have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?’ Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.’” You loved the way he said “Bennet.” It was such a joy to hear these words read by the man you loved. Words which transported you back in time to your old self. A freer self. From a time when the world was naught but possibility.

You put your ear to his chest and delighted in the rumble his raspy voice produced. He read to you for hours, stopping only briefly to close the window shades and switch on a lamp when the sun set. You giggled at the voices that he came up with for Lady Catherine and the kids in the quarry. “This guy is a right arse," he would interject, whenever Mr. Collins delivered one of his meandering monologues.

You rested your head on his chest, and sleepily left it there. He smelled like your peace, and had he said you were his family earlier? You closed your eyes and allowed him to take you to other worlds with his voice. When he needed to turn the page, he began using the pause to run his free hand up and down your back, or to kiss the top of your head once more.

Eventually you began to fall asleep, and Peter closed the book. He took off his specs and placed both down on a far corner of the bed. You shifted your right arm back into place by your side as he clicked off the lamp and slid down and under the sheets. He folded you into his embrace and closed his own eyes.

Cuddled together in the darkness, with your eyes still closed, you added in the softest of voices, “Peter… I’m going to be just fine. Thank you for staying…”

“I know that you will,” he whispered, “and there is nowhere in the world I would rather be.”


End file.
